Harley-Davidson Soft Tail review

Harley replaces an icon with a heroic new line-up

Harley-Davidson Soft Tail review

When Harley-Davidson axes a long-lived and popular model line-up, you better believe it has something special to go in its place.

After all, that legendary customer loyalty, for which other brands would kill, is a two-way street: You want our loyalty, give us yours.

And right now the Harley world is kind of reeling because the Dyna line-up of bikes has just been committed to history.

But the faithful shouldn’t fret, because we’ve just ridden next year’s Harley-Davidson cruisers; a range of bikes that replace both the old Softail and Dyna line-ups with a single model family that retains the Softail name.

2018 Harley-Davidson Deluxe Photo: Supplied

Not only has Harley been successful in combining the two ranges into one, in the process it has also wrought a major improvement on any Softail that went before it.

Then again, when you consider that the previous Softail range could trace its roots directly back to 1984, the new bike should always have been a huge leap forward. And it is.

A new frame is at the heart of the MY18 Softail family. It is both more rigid and lighter than before with some models reaping a weight saving of anything up to 15kg.

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It retains the hidden, single shock/spring unit that gives the Softail its signature look and there are now three different steering angles to give each of the eight new models its look and feel.

There’s more power for 2018, too, with the Softails all getting the latest 'Milwaukie 8', big-twin engine which retains those other Harley trademarks of a 45-degree layout and air-cooling.

Now, however, there’s electronic injection carried over from the previous bikes, but also a new four-valve cylinder head design that improves power and efficiency.

All Softails will get the 107 cubic-inch (1750cc) version of the engine with some of them being available with an optional 114 cubic-inch (1870cc) variant.

The engine is solid mounted in the frame according to Softail tradition and the placement of the engine was part of the process in what Harley-Davidson is calling the biggest single research and development program in its history.

That all adds up to eight distinct new Softail models, kicking off with the entry-level Street Bob, a pared-back number that uses high-rise (mini ape-hangers to the initiated) handlebars and, like all Australian-delivered Softails, will come with ABS brakes as standard.

2018 Harley-Davidson Street Bob Photo: Supplied

Prices start from $23,495 for the Street Bob and go all the way to $31,750.

Other models include the Softail Slim, Deluxe, Heritage Classic, Low Rider, Fat Bob and the range retains two of the best selling Harleys in Australia, the Fat Boy and the Breakout.

Both those latter models use a widened version of the standard frame to accept the wide, 240-section rear tyre that give each its signature, street-wise look.

And while that sounds like a lot of models to spin off a single platform, with the use of model-specific fuel tanks, guards, lighting, tyre sizes, wheels, instrumentation and colours, the differentiation is quite startling.

2018 Harley-Davidson Heritage Photo: supplied

In fact, at one extreme you have the Fat Boy with its chunky, solid alloy wheels, satin chrome finishes and what H-D’s Softail Styling Manager, Kirk Rasmussen, describes as a 'steamroller' appearance (and we wouldn’t argue) all the way to the Deluxe which is a more traditional looking Harley with spoked wheels, footboards, spotlights, valanced guards and even whitewall tyres.

And somewhere in between is the somewhat outrageous Fat Bob with its over-sized front tyre, dual front disc brakes, upside-down forks, pill-box headlight nacelle and is described as being “the bike you’d choose for surviving the zombie apocalypse” (Kirk Rasmussen again).

And it’s this diversity within the Softail range that Harley-Davidson reckons will fill the void left by the Dyna range.

The benefits of the new architecture are obvious the first time you lift a new Softail up off its side-stand: There’s a lot less weight in evidence. Some of this is down to clever engineering that has lowered the centre of gravity, the rest is down to the Jenny Craig treatment that has been applied to the bikes in the design process.

Harley also claims the new models are 34 per cent more rigid than before. Frankly, it feels like more than that. The looseness from the front end has gone and the rear end (which was really only phoning it in in the previous models) now has a real role to play. More impressive even is the fact that both the front and rear ends now seem to talk to each other and the frame itself keeps everything in line and the overall result feels taut.

Okay, it’s still no race bike, but the new Softail keeps its wheels in a line and finally absorbs bumps rather than habitually deflecting off them. The result is a bike that can now be hustled along.

Perhaps the most impressive change has been the lean angle possible in corners. In the old days, a Softail would dig its footpegs into the road at depressingly low lean angles, limiting the fun in the process.

But it was also a safety thing; a closing radius corner could be your downfall if you were already on the lean-angle limit when the corner started to tighten. In fact, in the old days, you wouldn’t have dreamed of riding a Softail as fast as we did at the launch of the new range in California last week, and the greater ground clearance, newfound chassis control, not to mention the thundering new engine, means the Softail rider doesn’t always have to look for another route to get around a mountain pass.

We prefer the models with the steeper steering-head angles, and our preference would definitely be for the models with the skinnier rear tyre as the big, fat tyre option seems to make the bike vastly less likely to turn in and then struggle to hold a cornering angle. The same goes for the Fat Bob which further struggles with a big, balloon front tyre that robs turn in and steering feel.

For our money, the best riding bike of the eight would be the Softail Slim with its narrow rear tyre, lovely steering and retro looks, followed by the Deluxe for much the same reasons and the Street Bob which promises the biggest bang for your buck.

The Softail Slim, in particular, is a sweet-handling, neutral-steering bike that is comfy and just seems to want to go round corners in a most un-Softail way, faithfully holding a line once you’ve committed. Like all these bikes, of course, the Slim rewards precision in your corner speed and line, because they’re still big, heavy bikes and changing tack mid-corner is not always advisable.

That leaves the glamour twins, the Fat Boy and the Breakout as the ones to buy if you want to stand out from the crowd at the expense of dynamic ability.

That said, even those two models would show any of the old Softail models a clean pair of heels. In fact, even the discontinued Dyna models wouldn’t see which way the new Softails went, and that’s kind of the point here.

The new engine makes a real statement in term of both performance and sound, and Harley is quick to point out that these are the most powerful Softails ever produced.

And if you ante up for the bigger, 114 cubic-inch engine, you’ll get even more mid-range punch and quite a bit more top-end thrust for your dollars. That said, nobody is going to be disappointed with the performance from the smaller V-twin.

Whether or not the new Softails can convince the faithful that the loss of the Dyna is progress remains to be seen. The secret will be for Harley-Davidson to get bums on seats and let the bikes do the talking.

And if that happens, the new Softails will be just as revered as the Dyna ever was.